It's an act of pure programming bastardry. And, as usual, it's the audience that loses out.

In the rush to capitalise on Schapelle Corby's likely release from Bali's Kerobokan Prison, Nine has shifted its telemovie dramatisation of her arrest and incarceration, Schapelle, into a Sunday night timeslot.

Ratings gold? Krew Boylan (centre) as Schapelle Corby in a scene from the Schapelle telemovie.

That pits it directly against Seven's broadcast of INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, the highly-anticipated miniseries based on the life of the iconic Australian rock star Michael Hutchence.

Of course there is no obligation to protect one Australian drama from the competitive heat of another, but when there are two projects of such significant national interest, slamming them up against one another is nothing less than a game of brinkmanship from which there are no winners.

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And that's without even bringing Rake, the ABC's offering on Sunday night and yet another Australian drama, into the picture.

Nine is entitled to operate as competitively as it likes, and packaging Schapelle with rolling coverage of her likely release no doubt makes commercial sense. But there has to be a tipping point between pure commerce and respect for the audience.

Nine has nothing to gain - the Schapelle telemovie will deliver nuclear ratings wherever it falls in the schedule. The only ambition in pitting it against INXS is to deliver Seven a bruising on the first night of official ratings for 2014.

And once again, it is the audience who comes off second best. And before you hand the tissues to Seven, they're as guilty of it as Nine.

Australia's television viewing audience have been the long-suffering partners in a technological relationship which has, for decades, kept them second-class citizens.

They have endured decades of shows being deliberately run long to minimise their choices in the mistaken belief that by knocking off the options we can somehow be transformed into channel-loyal zombies.

The only ambition in pitting [Schapelle] against INXS is to deliver Seven a bruising on the first night of official ratings for 2014.

Or the snails-pace introduction of digital television, which stretched across more than a decade as commercial networks happily lined their pockets with cuts to their licence fees, but delivered nothing more than library channels to fill the airspace.

Even now they lobby quietly behind the scenes to have their obligations to children's television and documentary quotas cut, while insisting the anti-siphoning legislation remain to insulate them against competition.

If you're looking for an example of having your cake and eating it too, you don't need to look too far past commercial TV.

But audiences don't forgive easily. Just look at the glee with which Nine's spectacular fall from ratings supremacy was received. And the net of every cumulative kick in the head is an audience who will willingly sit on the sidelines and watch these decaying old titans slug it out in a battle to the bottom.

What lies ahead is a new digital paradigm in which commercial television networks, while not actually dead in the water, risk putting themselves on the shortlist to top the endangered species list. And the chances of anyone sending flowers to that particular funeral get slimmer by the day.

As the TV ratings year begins, most media pundits will be asking whether Schapelle or INXS will win. In the end, however, there is only one certainty: it's the TV audience who loses.